Right Angle began as a column in the now-defunct Sunday magazine in November 1991. The column allowed me the luxury of presenting an alternative to the prevailing left-liberal consensus in India. It has become the implicit signature tune for all my subsequent writings.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

The curious case of convenient liberalism

By Swapan Dasgupta

Last week, liberal opinion that enjoys a virtual
monopoly of the airwaves pilloried the Supreme Court for what some feel was its
most disgraceful judgment since the infamous Habeas Corpus case of 1976. The
decision to overturn the Delhi High Court judgment taking consensual same-sex
relationships outside the purview of criminal laws has been viewed as an
unacceptable assault on individual freedom and minority rights and even an
expression of bigotry. Overcoming fears of a virulent conservative backlash,
mainstream politicians have expressed their disappointment at the judgment and
happily begun using hitherto unfamiliar shorthand terms such as LGBT.

Indeed, the most striking feature of the furore over
the apex court judgment has been the relatively small number of voices
denouncing homosexuality as ‘unnatural’ and deviant. This conservative
passivity may even have conveyed an impression that India is changing socially
and politically at a pace that wasn’t anticipated. Certainly, the generous
overuse of ‘alternative’ to describe
political euphoria and cultural impatience may even suggest that tradition has
given way to post-modernity.

Yet, before urban India is equated with the bohemian
quarters of New York and San Francisco, some judgmental restraint may be in
order. The righteous indignation against conservative upholders of family
values are not as clear cut as may seem from media reports. There are awkward
questions that have been glossed over and many loose that have been left
dangling.

A year ago, a fierce revulsion against the rape and
murder of a young woman in Delhi led to Parliament amending the Penal Code and
enacting a set of laws that extended the definition of rape and made punishment
extremely stringent. It was the force of organised public opinion that drove
the changes. Curiously, despite the Supreme Court judgment stating quite
categorically that it was the responsibility of Parliament to modify section
377, there seems to be a general aversion to pressuring the law-makers to do
their job and bring the criminal law system into the 21st century.
Is it because India is bigoted or is there a belief that there are some issues
that are best glossed over in silence?

This dichotomy of approach needs to be addressed.
Conventionally, it is the job of the legislatures to write laws and for the
judiciary to assess their accordance with the Constitution and to interpret
them. In recent years, the judiciary has been rightly criticised for over-stepping
its mark and encroaching into the domain of both the executive and the
legislatures. Yet, we are in the strange situation today of the government
seeking to put the onus of legitimising homosexuality on the judges.

Maybe there are larger questions involved. The
battle over 377 was not between a brute majoritarianism and a minority
demanding inclusion. The list of those who appealed against the Delhi High
Court verdict indicates it was a contest between two minorities: religious
minorities versus lifestyle minorities. Formidable organisations such as the
All India Muslim Personal Law Board and some church bodies based their
opposition to gay rights on theology. Liberal promoters of sexual choice on the
other hand based the claim of decriminalised citizenship on modernity and scientific
evidence. In short, there was a fundamental conflict between the
Constitutionally-protected rights of minority communities to adhere to faiths
that abhor same-sex relationships and the right of gays to live by their own
morals. Yet, if absolute libertarianism was to prevail, can the khap panchayats
be denied their perverse moral codes?

The answer is yes but only if it is backed by
majority will, expressed through Parliament. Harsh as it may sound, it is the
moral majority that determines the social consensus.

There is a curious paradox here. On the question of
gay rights liberal India prefers a cosmopolitanism drawn from the contemporary
West. At the same time, its endorsement of laws that are non-denominational and
non-theological does not extend to support for a common civil code. Despite the
Constitution’s Directive Principles, the right of every citizen to be equal
before the law is deemed to be majoritarian and therefore unacceptable by the
very people who stood up for inclusiveness last week.

For everything that is true of India, the opposite
is turning out to be equally true.

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About Me

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toehold in the mainstream media. I intend this blog as a sounding board of ideas and concerns.
You can read the details of my education, professional experience and political inclinations on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapan_Dasgupta).
RIGHT ANGLE is an archive of my published articles. USUAL SUSPECTS is my blog.